This invention relates to an apparatus that receives, stores and displays information and allows a user to interact with the source or sources of the information. In particular, it pertains to the receipt of a bill from a creditor and payment of the bill.
As the use of credit becomes more widespread and the cost of postage increases, it becomes economically feasible to use telecommunications to bill individual and corporate users of credit and to pay these bills by telecommunication. Telecommunication is defined here as communication at a distance as by telephone, radio, optical beams or the like. In the past, many suppliers of credit accumulated charges during a month, closed the account at the end of the month, and billed all users as of month end. This made for an uneven work load, and, as a result, many providers of credit bill on a monthly basis but close accounts evenly throughout the month to reduce a peak load at the end of the month. Mailing costs are generally such that it is not economically efficient to bill most credit-card accounts, store accounts, utilities and the like, more often than once a month.
It would be useful to have a telecommunication device for billing consumers that would avoid the cost and delay of mailing a conventional bill. Some of these costs include the preparation of individual bills, stuffing the bills in envelopes, affixing postage to the envelopes, and the costs and delays of mail delivery. In addition, interest that can be made on the average billed amount for the average amount of time gained represents a saving that would pay some or all of the cost of the telecommunication system that delivers such bills and authorizes payment of the bills.